The Golden State Warriors are 72-9 on the season and are one win away from being immortals in the history books. That hasn’t stopped Charles Barkley from believing that the Warriors would be booted out of the playoffs in the second round if they run into the Los Angeles Clippers, a team the Warriors went 4-0 against this season. His primary reason: Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan would maul the Warriors. In fact, Barkley went as far as to say that he
I hope Oscar Robertson was watching Saturday night. I hope he saw Stephen Curry answer his ridiculous, attention-starved musings as definitively as possible. I hope he wasn’t too jaded to see Curry handle the ball in a way Robertson only wished he could. I hope his eyesight still works well enough to see from where Curry was launching – and making – his shots. And I hope Robertson and a number of NBA stars from bygone eras will just shut up and
Because it’s early October and we have college hoops practices getting underway, along with NBA preseason action, I figured it was a good time to give my basketball lifer’s opinion on some different rankings and lists I’ve thought about and put together. Why have I done this? Well in this country, we count championships and rings. We keep score and rank and list. I can hear my wife laughing now saying “these are the things you are wasting your brain power on and thinking about during your
See that guy? That white silhouette inside the red and blue? That’s Jerry West. He’s the NBA logo and has been since 1969, when he was still playing. Jerry West’s nickname was “Mr. Clutch.” Former Boston Celtics radio announcer Johnny Most, who disliked every player not wearing green and white, used to call him “Gentleman Jerry.” To my knowledge, Jerry West and Julius Erving are the only visiting players who ever received polite applause upon entering the lion’s den known as Boston
Teams in the NBA playoff races aren’t the only ones watching scoreboards this time of year. Take the Philadelphia 76ers, for example. The Sixers lost their first 17 games, were mathematically eliminated from the playoff race nearly a month ago and almost certainly will lose 60-plus games for the second straight season. But GM Sam Hinkie and the rest of the Sixers’ front office are tracking the results of other games almost as closely as their own. That’s because Philadelphia could have
During TNT’s first game between the Houston Rockets and Phoenix Suns on Tuesday, Charles Barkley said something about both teams that had plenty of folks shaking their heads on twitter. “Two of the worst defenses in the league” were the words spoken by the long-time analyst, despite the fact that Houston is ranked seventh on defense, while Phoenix is a bit lower at 17th overall. To be fair to Barkley, who has a tendency to make comments as if he were
While many GMs were working the phones this week, Knicks president Phil Jackson was using a different, more contemporary form of communication: Twitter. On Thursday, Donnie Nelson and Danny Ainge swung a five-player trade that sent Rajon Rondo to Dallas and draft picks to Boston. On Friday, Daryl Morey, Flip Saunders and Sam Hinkie worked a three-team deal that landed Corey Brewer and Alexey Shved in Houston and draft picks in Minnesota and Philadelphia. But not Jackson, and not the Knicks. Jackson doesn’t
Carmelo Anthony and the New York Knicks suffered yet another heartbreaking loss on Thursday – this time against the Cleveland Cavaliers at home 90-87. Not unlike many of their previous losses, the Knicks put in the effort and played a hard-fought game. Unfortunately, Anthony played his ugliest game of the season offensively, scoring nine points on just four-of-19 shooting from the field. His potential game-tying 3-pointer at the end of the game bounced off the rim, sending New York to its 16th